School of Languages and Cultures HDR Symposium 2025

Interdisciplinarity: Embracing new approaches and celebrating the HDR journey

Date: Thursday, 13th February 2025
Time: 9am - 5pm
Venue: Sir Llew Edwards Building, room 132, The University of Queensland, Saint Lucia Campus

Please note that the symposium is a free in-person only event. Lunch will be provided.

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Welcome to the School of Languages and Cultures (SLC) Higher Degree by Research (HDR) symposium 2025, Interdisciplinarity: Embracing New Approaches and Celebrating the HDR Journey. The symposium is a student-led event that aims to foster connections and collaborations across various disciplines and celebrate the diverse scholarly achievements of the SLC’s broader HDR and ECR community. 

The symposium program will be announced early 2025.

What is interdisciplinarity?

Interdisciplinarity is the integration of knowledge, methods and perspectives from multiple disciplines to address complex problems in today’s world. By integrating different viewpoints, we not only enrich our research experience but also gain valuable skills and insights that can be applied far beyond our academic careers. Interdisciplinarity inspires us to innovate our ideas and practices while offering tools to tackle challenges which require multifaceted understanding. This, in turn, makes our HDR journey more impactful and interesting in many ways. 

Why adopt interdisciplinarity as a theme?

The HDR journey can be isolating for some candidates; however, by engaging with interdisciplinarity holistically, we encourage colleagues to form connections and reach out to others.

The goal of the symposium is to:

1. Showcase the adoption and integration of interdisciplinary perspectives, approaches and practices in current research.  
2. Celebrate the achievements of our HDR candidates and ECRs, highlighting their scholarly outcomes, successful industry placements and/or liaison work. 
3. Foster a sense of inclusivity and belonging, making HDR candidates and ECRs feel valued and welcomed as emerging scholars. 

Who are the organisers?

• Franciele Spinelli
• Natalia Gorecka 
• Nicholas Hugman
• Nissa Mukti
• Sonia Broad
• Pham Quy
• Xiaoji (Annie) Wang

Message from the SLC Director of Higher Degree by Research

Welcome to the 2025 School of Languages and Cultures HDR Symposium. This is truly exciting for all of us to celebrate the diverse scholarly achievements and the journey of our HDR candidates and ECRs. This is not exactly the “inaugural” symposium, but close to it. When we were the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies, we held the Rhizomes Postgraduate Conference annually from 2005, but it stopped a decade ago. I’m amused to find the 2010 UQ News reporting that the conference “allowed postgraduate students and early career researchers in the humanities and social sciences to engage in interdisciplinary dialogue on a particular theme”. So, the spirit is reborn with the enthusiasm of this fantastic symposium committee. I believe the 2025 symposium will be a wonderful gathering for your research and personal endeavours.

 Dr Kayoko Hashimoto, SLC Director of HDR